Thursday, March 22, 2012

Here is another article with good, common sense advice that will not work for homework-trapped children.

Here is my response.

This is good advice if it works. The problem is that there
are numbers of children for whom it does not work, and will not work if we hold
to the underlying principles of what is being said. Children work at difference
paces from each other. Whereas school starts and stops by the clock, homework
does not. To say that the child needs to do all the work thoroughly, manage
time, and sustain motivation when, for that child, pace is an issue, is a set
up for that child to not manage time well and to then lose drive. The most
important component of time management is to identify the time that has to be
managed. Is the child managing an hour, two hours, three hours? Common
standards say ten minutes per night per grade, so no child should be working
more than two hours a night (if he is a senior). If he has to take three
because he writes slowly, or reads slowly, or works slowly for some other
reason, he isn't managing time. If he figures out what is doable for him in two
hours, then prioritizes the assignments and makes thoughtful decisions about which
assignments he is NOT going to do, or decides that it pays to do all his assignments
quickly but NOT thoroughly, then that student has learned to manage time. Until
we shift from content based to true time based homework, we are going to be
leaving a substantial number of children behind. Kenneth Goldberg, Ph.D. author
of The Homework Trap. www.thehomeworktrap.com.